Modern portable consumer and industrial electronics, especially client devices such as navigation systems, smart phones, portable digital assistants, and combination devices are providing increasing levels of functionality to support modern life including location-based information services. Research and development in the existing technologies can take a myriad of different directions.
As users become more empowered with the growth of mobile location based service devices, new and old paradigms begin to take advantage of this new device space. There are many technological solutions to take advantage of this new device location opportunity. One existing approach is to use location information to provide navigation services such as a global positioning system (GPS) for a car or on a mobile device such as a cell phone, portable navigation device (PND) or a personal digital assistant (PDA).
Often, the routing algorithm of navigation devices subjects the user to cumbersome and sometimes dangerous directions in light of simpler and safer choices. In unfamiliar areas, the user has no choice but to endure the longer travel time and the added dangers without even knowing of other choices.
Thus, a need still remains for a navigation system to provide information with improvement in usability, performance, and accuracy. In view of the importance of positioning systems in modern life, it is increasingly critical that answers be found to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.